Rating books is a deeply personal thing and how we connect with books is also deeply personal. Books are art, and how we interpret the written word will often differ from how someone else interprets the same written passages.
In addition, our own life experiences shape how we react to art and books, so it is no surprise that book ratings are very subjective.
When it comes to how I rate books, I try to keep it as standard as possible but I realize that the more I read, the harder it gets to give a book five stars. I read so many now that it takes a lot more for a book to wow me, for a book to really stick in my mind long past reading it.
Like many others, I read a lot and forget what the books were about. Let’s be honest, a lot of books are forgettable. They’re fun, enjoyable and then once out of sight, out of mind.
I look back at books I read five, six, or seven years ago, and some five-star books I have no idea what they’re even about anymore. I don’t think many of those would be five stars today.
Regardless, here’s how I go about rating my books
5 stars
Amazing. I was hooked and this book touched my soul in some way. This is a book that will stick with me for years. I will own a physical copy and I might even re-read it at some point. I love amazing characters and I don’t care the genre, if you the characters grab hold of my heart, this is a five star book.
4 stars
I read to be entertained. I give more four stars than anything because if I am excited to pick up my book or if I am excited to take a walk so I can keep listening to my audio book, then it’ll be a four star book more than likely. Keep me entertained, and do not drop any weird plot lines that don’t make sense. Keep the pacing consistent so that I don’t get bored.
3 stars
I used to hardly ever give books 3 stars. To me three stars wasn’t good. Now that’s not true. 3 stars is decent. Would I recommend it? Maybe. It was potentially a good book, but not for me. A 3 star book had some issues for me though. Whether I struggled with the characters being dumb, or something about the plot made no sense, or the pacing dragged in spots. Something didn’t click for me.
2 stars
I never used to give a book two stars. I think the lowest I gave was three stars but now that I read so much more, I do give two star reviews. These are books that I either DNF or did finish but struggled the whole book with no payoff at the end. I will only rate a DNF if I’ve read over 50% AND I will also be very up front that this was a DNF for me. I do try to at least skim the rest of the book but sometimes I just can’t bring myself to care enough to even skim.
1 star
Okay, I have yet to give a book one star. When this happens, I’ll come back and edit this part but so far, it hasn’t happened though I’ve thoroughly disliked a couple of books recently, I tried to be nice and give them at least two stars.